Fort Worth daily gazette. (Fort Worth, Tex.) 1882-1891, 1887-05-04

out OF their boundaries as wanderers
and Outcasts, still they have 8 greater
number of paupers than we, while the
evidences of discomfort by strikes, mobs.
unions and conventions against employers
attest at once the misery and discomfort
of labor among them. Her towns are
stationary and her villages almost every
where proclaim the progress of general
decline. Do these facts exhibit in the
individual man Of Maine 8 higher devel-
Opment, or is their section in g happier
situation than that to be found
in Texas? What have the states
which have adopted prohibition laws
secured as compensation for their long
agitation of this question with all its
paralyZing divisions and dissensions?
Have they certainly di carded liquor?
The official report Of Hon, James S. Mil
Ter, commissioner of intern / revenue for
the year ending June 3, 1886, showed that
Kansas paid to the revenue department
$50, 4I4, 548, Iowa S25, 473, 400, and Maine
So, 780,079 for the year 1886. viii
any candid man contend at
this liquor was not consumed by the peO-
pie? Then if it was, did not the law sim
ply rob these states Of their legitimate
revenue, and is it good policy for the peo-
pie of Texas to follow their example and
drive liquor from public traffic where it
may be fully regulated by the most
stringent laws for the protection Of youth,
student and habituaI drunkard, into
Clandestine and secret traffic and at the
same time deplete its revenue from va
rtous sources to probably a SI,000,000
when it has none to spare,
and which will have to be made
good by increased eXactiOns upon the
taxpayers of the state to keep the gov
eminent and the schools running? 1t
will not do to say that this amount will
be made good to the people by the de-
crease of crime, for there is no antiCipa-
ted reduction in the number of judges,
terms of court or other necessary eX
penses in the enforcement of the criminal
laws, and If there Is any appreCiable de-
crease in the expenses from this source,
it must be admitted it Will be gradual
and of no benefit to the people for q term
of years.
After looking through the sacred book
from Genesis to the end of it, l
fad an exh0rtation to every virtue and
rebuke for every sin, but l nowhere find
the condemnation of the making or drink
ing Of wine. No government ever sue
Ceeded in changing the moral condition of
its subjects by force. The opposing of
opinion and conscience has deluged every
country and tainted the air of every
cline and stained the robes of righteous
ness OF every sect with the blood
of every human sacrifice which was
honest and earnest in faith. 1t kindled
the fires of the Inquisition in which the
best men and women of the land were
burned the flames sweeping over the earth
pushed by cyclone. But we need not go
back to the past ages to see the effects of
arbitrary laws in government, or dOgmat-
iC systems of faith in the church. We
have only to read the history of the blind
lnCredulity and deplore the mad folly,
such as made the people Of Massachusetts
famous for hanging their neighOors who
were possibly better han themselves for
the crime of witchcraft on testimony that
no child of to day would believe, and we of
this day wonder that men with the least
conception of the functions of civil
government could practice such
intolerance. I have faith in honest
instinct and just Intentions, the desire
to do right of the great masses; but l
would urge them to calm deliberation at
this hour when the tide of feeling is run
ming so high that its roar may drown for
the time the great voice of reason.
Scion in his code proposed no punish
ment for parricide, treating the case as
an impossible crime. Such with our
people ought to be the crime of political
parricide, this dismemberment of the
Democratic party. Hoping that good
counsel may prevail in your meeting and
that good may come of your delibera-
tions, am very respectfully,
[Signed lyf% L. S. Ross.